Exploring aspects of database migration analysis and associated work planning activities, we learn to tackle some of the challenges and problems for building a successful migration strategy.

Business Analysis and Data Analysis are part of the preparation for migration of information systems that utilises business data.

Conducting the data analysis part of the migration equation, we focus on assessing where data originates from, how it gets transformed, where it gets transferred to and the data flow. Such analysis covers timing, scheduling, ownership and management, security, how data gets used, data format, data quality, ….

We first need to model how data will be transformed and integrated into existing business data processing activities.

It’s possible that a BA Business Analyst may also be involved in the project. If this is the case, they will have captured information on operational problems with using internal processes or computing applications. They will understand some of the departmental dependencies on business information to be migrated. Any data intelligence or workflow task processing that has been captured will not have a technical perspective, but the BA will know who all the stakeholders are, they will have a grasp of many of the departmental processes surrounding the use of business data. Information available from the BA will be from the perspective of users and how people do their work. This analysis will incorporate aspirations of key stake holders and will feed into the overall understanding of how existing tools and application programs are utilized.

Migration of business database systems

Pure Migration being the process of translating X into Y without changing

the desired outputs.

or the business features.

or the project scope.

and without necessitating that the inputs to the system change.

In contrast to a BA, a Data Analyst will need to dig deeper and capture a technical understanding concerning system integration, data processing algorithms, scheduling and automatic data processing features that are in play within the business system.

So: What does a data analyst do? What is involved in their work-flow and what do they deliver to the business?